ARTICLES

David Matthews - Thoughts from a Life: Opera as an Art

Music was an essential part of Roger Scruton’s life. He learned the piano as a boy, and as an adult acquired the profound technical knowledge that enabled him to write The Aesthetics of Music, widely recognized as the most important book in its field. He also wrote two books of essays on music, and three magisterial books on Wagner – Death Devoted Heart (on Tristan und Isolde), The Ring of Truth, and his final book, Wagner’s Parsifal: The Music of Redemption. He taught himself to compose (with a little help from me) and wrote two operas, The Minister (1998) and Violet (2005), both of which were staged and which, as I experienced myself, are musically and dramatically effective. Composing for him was a sideline, although if he had not decided to pursue just about everything else, Roger might have become an important contributor to the music of our time

Read the full article HERE on the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation website. 

News from Scrutopia - 1st March 2021

Read all the latest news from Scrutopia HERE.

BBBBC Recommendations Update 30 Jan 21

Local communities will be at the heart of plans to make sure that new developments in their area are beautiful and well-designed, under proposals outlined by Housing Secretary Rt Hon Robert Jenrick MP today (30 January 2021) You can listen to the announcement here.

We are pleased to read that Building Better Building Beautiful Commission recommendations have been taken up by the government in its formal response which can be found here

News from Scrutopia - 29th January 2021

Read all the lastest news from Scrutopia HERE.

Jesus College Obituary, Stephen Heath - Jan 21

Perhaps one of the finest obituaries to have been written which has appeared in the Jesus College Cambridge Annual Review, 2020 by Stephen Heath, whom we didn’t know, but who clearly followed Roger’s work closely. Thanks to Professor Heath’s article, Roger has been made to feel at home in Cambridge. You can read the obituary here.

Stephen Blackwood - Thoughts from a Life: On the Importance of 'Bunking'

It is easy enough to point out the incoherence of the radicals: the layers of reflexive ideology, senseless iconoclasm, ignorance, and inherently unfulfillable demands. And point them out we should. 

But then what? 

No merely critical standpoint can build, let alone ‘conserve’ anything. One can lament the fire ravaging Notre Dame, but a dislike of fire confers exactly none of the knowledge required to build—or indeed, rebuild—that magnificent monument of Western culture. For that, you need architectural-mathematical understanding, aesthetic vision, as well as stone-carvers, carpenters, vitrailleurs, and so forth. Lamenting the Cathedral’s destruction is one thing; rebuilding it is another.

Sir Roger understood that. You can’t counter nihilism, you can’t defeat the iconoclasts, by critique alone. Indeed, even to focus primarily on critique is already to concede that the game is one of tearing-down, one of destruction.  

Read the full article HERE on the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation website. 

Daniel Hannan in The Sunday Telegraph

A year ago today, I was in Malmesbury Abbey, the gaunt, half-ruined resting place of England’s first king. It was the day of Roger Scruton’s funeral, and philosophers and prime ministers from around the world had descended on the ancient wool town to honour him, as conspicuous in their grandeur as the Magi at Bethlehem.

Sign in to read the full article on the Telegraph website HERE.

 

Remembering Roger Scruton - RSLF online memorial event

On January 12, 2021, the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation hosted Remembering Roger Scruton, an online memorial event marking the one-year anniversary of Scruton's passing.

'Scruton in Eastern Europe', the event's first session, explored Scruton's work leading underground seminars in then Czechoslovakia with guest speakers Jessica Douglas-Home, Chairman of the Mihai Eminescu Trust, and Dr. Barbara Day MBE, former Executive Director of the Jan Hus Educational Foundation, led by moderator Marion Smith, President and CEO of the Victims of Communism Foundation. The session also featured comments from Fisher Derderian, Executive Director of the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation, and Dr. Mark Dooley, the executor of Scruton's literary estate.

'Scruton the Man', the event's second session, featured an interview with Michael Gove, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, led by Peter Robinson, host of the Hoover Institution's Uncommon Knowledge.

'Scruton the Philosopher', the event's third session, explored Scruton's work as a Philosopher with guest speakers Professor Robert P. George of Princeton University and Professor Remi Brague of the Sorbonne led by moderator Lord Glasman, Labour life peer in the House of Lords and Founder of Blue Labour.

All sessions are now available to view on YouTube, click HERE

 

Roger Scruton still gives me strength. Maurice Glasman - UnHerd, Jan 21

Roger Scruton still gives me strength. A year after his death, the philosopher is more relevant than ever.

Ilast saw my friend Roger Scruton on 23 December 2019, at his home in Wiltshire. I was shocked. He was emaciated from chemotherapy and told me plainly that he would die soon. “One has to be reasonable about this”, he said, “it happens to us all.” He was a philosopher to the end.

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